
Directing
Dāvis Sīmanis, son of the cinematographer of the same name, is a Latvian film director and university professor.

A laid-back journey in search of one of the world’s most fascinating families, observed and examined from within its most intimate relationships, where the truth and depth of a memoir meet the ironic tone of an indie comedy.

A charcoal on paper animation about a motorcycling circus bear who decides to leave the daily routine and takes off to the forest where his true happiness seems to dwell.

The film is based on true events, it tells the stories of two outstanding personalities of the 20th century – Sergei Eisenstein and Isaiah Berlin, who were both born and spent their childhood in Riga but soon had to leave the city. The film follows the lives of the two characters during the turbulent first half of the 20th century, telling how one of them becomes “the greatest film director of his generation” in the totalitarian Soviet Union, and the other “the greatest thinker of his generation” in liberal Great Britain.

A journey into the complex world of today, full of hopes, desires, and fears for the present. The film invites us to follow a voice whose thoughts and doubts about the present become a meditation accompanied by works of art. The film features all the artworks exhibited at the second Riga Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA2). Reminiscent of a Tarkovskyan dystopia, the united ecosystem of living nature, a disused power plant, an abandoned paintball field, warehouses, flocks of birds, cruise ships and railway tracks, makes the film’s space its own metaphor for the collapse of Soviet ideals and capitalist hopes.

In the final years of World War I a retired German field medic is sent to a remote sanatorium for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic mental disorders. There he encounters a strange, dreamlike state of existence that challenges his own war-torn mind.

In the final years of World War I a retired German field medic is sent to a remote sanatorium for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic mental disorders. There he encounters a strange, dreamlike state of existence that challenges his own war-torn mind.

This documentary deals with faith, human aging, a struggle to fulfill your vision and above all - one particular building. In its poetical minimalism the film observes the construction of the new Latvian National Library, which has become a metaphor for a temple, a boiling-point for an entire nation.

This documentary deals with faith, human aging, a struggle to fulfill your vision and above all - one particular building. In its poetical minimalism the film observes the construction of the new Latvian National Library, which has become a metaphor for a temple, a boiling-point for an entire nation.

In 1937, silent film star Maria Leiko travels to USSR upon learning of the birth of her granddaughter. But when she discovers the tragic circumstances of that event, KGB agents persuade her to remain in the country. Leiko abandons her cinema career to instead join Skatuve, the Latvian State Theatre in Moscow. Soon she discovers that she is being manipulated by the government amid its purges of political enemies. As a network of traitors, informers, and NKVD agents surround her, she must choose between family and career, and between her ideals and the lies of Stalin’s totalitarian regime.

In 1937, silent film star Maria Leiko travels to USSR upon learning of the birth of her granddaughter. But when she discovers the tragic circumstances of that event, KGB agents persuade her to remain in the country. Leiko abandons her cinema career to instead join Skatuve, the Latvian State Theatre in Moscow. Soon she discovers that she is being manipulated by the government amid its purges of political enemies. As a network of traitors, informers, and NKVD agents surround her, she must choose between family and career, and between her ideals and the lies of Stalin’s totalitarian regime.


